At a time of deep and ruthless budget cuts a grassroots effort might squeak through with some federal funds to help pregnant and breastfeeding women. Right now, birth defects is still the number one cause of infant death. And birth defects are often caused by risky prenatal exposures, whether it be medication, illness, chemicals, vitamins--a list that is long and constantly changing.
One major answer is to get the word out but non-profit groups like the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS) which is the network of agencies that give out this kind of information to doctors, health care workers and the public has suffered severe reductions in counselors and office closures.
So a bi-partisan group of legislators including Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) and the primary authors , Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-CT) and Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D. (R-TX) have just introduced a bill to Congress to establish a grant program, that would provide federal funding to give OTIS and other pregnancy information services a boost.
In California, the OTIS program is run from UC San Diego , a satellite office is located in Children's Hospital, Los Angeles. "We don't know if it (Birth Defects Prevention, risk Reduction, and Awareness Act of 2010) will pass, but we hope it will succeed at this difficult time, " says Christina Chambers, associate professor of pediatrics at UC San Diego and director of the California program (CTIS).
The demand and need to help women make healthy choices to prevent birth defects hasn't changed through the years but the money to help keep programs going has decreased to the point where recently offices in Washington state and Missouri have had to close altogether. Once an office is shut down, it's next to impossible to open one back up, Chambers says.
The $10 million dollars the Prevention Act is asking for seems small compared to the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars we often hear about in the budget battle, but Chambers says it's a minimal request with a big payoff in saving the lives of children.
The federal funds would allow the California office to reinstate much needed counselors to help the women and health care workers with vital information that they can get for free. In California, the CTIS Pregnancy Health Information Line is : (800) 532-3749.
